I agree with you that while Christianity/ the Bible is flawed....heck everything that man does is flawed. We can't seem to do anything right. And we won't be able to comprehend all things in this life before we meet up with the divine. The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know anything. But for you, your desire to live a full and good life to be connected with the "divine"--whoever he/it may be is exactly what I am talking about. Man's search for meaning makes him look for something greater than himself. So again I say, "What about Atheists?" What would drive them to no seek meaning. Why do good if there is no eternal consequence? Why have rules? Why have government? Why have school? Why seek to be better? Life makes no sense if you take the "divine" out of things.

Here is what I said:

Everything mankind does being flawed depends entirely on the concept of "perfect," which is very easy for someone of the Christian faith to point to (Christ's perfect example, etc.). For me, it's not a matter of perfect, but a matter of best. If the works were entirely what is best, what we are most capable of, etc., then it would not be flawed in my view.

As it stands, when I say they are flawed, I do not mean imperfect, but at the least incomplete, and in a very different way, corrupting to the ideals of the divine. Recall that the old testament promotes the stoning of people who are gay. Recall that the new testament was used as justification for holy wars of all kinds. The same applies to the Qu'ran and various other religious texts. They corrupt the divine by claiming a definitive knowledge of what it is, and in the case of the personification of divine in the form of deity, what the divine wants. And what the divine wants is good, and deity (who loves you very much) will send you to burn in hell for all eternity if you don't do it. This twisting of the reality of the divine - the use of the divine, in fact, for social, political, and even capitalistic reasons, is not merely an imperfect attempt to capture the divine. It is an obstruction to it.

Now, these things can be used appropriately as stepping stones to gain a greater view of what the divine is - so long as we always use our personal judgment, and our own innate connection with what the divine is. If we seek not to judge ourselves by a book, but by reality, we will end up better. If we acknowledge that we cannot judge others by a book, because their reality is superior, and we do not know their reality, then we will gain a more perfect union in our pursuit of the divine.

Do we really need a whip on our back to desire to do well towards others? No. Absolutely not. Are you aware that while 75% of the US population is Christain, and 75% of the prison population is Christian, 2% of the US population is atheist and only .1% of our prison population is atheist? In other words, an atheist is less likely to commit a crime.

If the divine is a reality, then it does not need to believed in for it to be effective. If someone states "I do not believe in gravity," it does not give them the ability to fly. Meaning exists without books, religions, teachers, or guides claiming that it exists in a specific way. Meaning is what we all seek. Not because a book tells us to, but because that's what is behind it all.

Why have government, education, community, etc.? Well, not all want it, because they believe that these things can interfere with their pursuit of the divine, and honestly, they make some good points. That being said, the vast majority of atheists are not anarchists. Rather, atheists tend to want government, education, and community for the same reasons others do - because it aids them on their pursuit of the divine, and allows them to aid others. Progress is not an ideal reserved for the religious. Atheists, like myself (for I deny the existence of a God - claiming that is merely a failed attempt to personify something we cannot comprehend), still seek to improve. The primary difference as I see it is that we are motivated by what is around us, and are able to gain a true morality whereby we can connect to other people here, now, and in this lifetime. Not in a lifetime that comes after, which we have no ability to verify, validate, or test.

The Dalai Lama had this beautiful passage, where he said (paraphrase): "An intelligent man will not kill another man, for he fears the law, and does not wish to feel guilty. A religious man will not kill another man, for he will not want a negative mark on his karma which will cause him a worse reincarnation in the next life. But a good man will not kill another man because he recognizes that the other man has as much right to existence as he does, and he has no right to take that life." Atheism, in many ways, breeds a higher morality. A more real connection to people, without using the excuse, motivation, and conditioning of a religion and deity to say why we treat others well. We treat them well because humankind is sacred. Not in the sense that a God ordained it, but by definition that it is "worthy of respect and dedication."

The elimination of the idea of a deity who created, guides, and judges us, allows for an elevation of mankind to a holier status. If we take God off of a pedestal, we become the highest beings in the Universe. We cannot, then, justify crusades or suicide bombing because "God said so," and he is a higher being. We cannot justify it by mere human authority. The cases in which harming another could be justified are reduce and reduced and reduced, and perhaps never eliminated, but seen in a more clear light.

It also puts us all on the same team. Without the various Gods to separate out which ones of us are on the "right side," we are more able to function as a community.

Beyond that, Deity has always been used as a justification for backwards views. Things destructive to the pursuit of the divine. For example, interracial marriage has biblical statements directly against it. The bible also condones male dominance over women, the enslavement of other people, and the capitalization of animal species. So when it says things that people hold to, like homosexual relationships being wrong, we need to strongly question it. Merely because someone wrote in a book that a deity told them something doesn't make it true, in and of itself. All the logic surrounding the bible is circular.

If we eliminate it as a supreme authority - if we, in fact, eliminate all supreme authorities, and return power to mankind - we will be able to use these things (the bible, the qu'ran, the tao te ching, bagavad gita, etc.) as appropriate tools in reaching the divine, without the hampering that currently occurs because of its elevated status. The books contain wisdom. They also contain flaws. We must evaluate for ourselves which is which - not seek to judge others by these books on the whole.

/endrant